Campdraft

[DanielJones]

Yeah, I've picked a couple up at our local Boot Barn. They refer to them as hat retainers, but hat stretcher & hat jack are appropriate as well.
If you want to stretch it to fit your head here is what I do.

I first steam the stretcher to warm it up and moisten it a bit. Then I steam the inside of the hat, put the hat jack in and turn the screw until the jack is firm in the hat. Then, slowly, I repeat, slowly crank the screw 1/8 turns at a time. This may take a couple of days and maybe a re-steaming, but very little steam.

One thing an old hat refurbisher in Virginia City, Nevada showed me was to remove the stitching on the ribbon on one end, stretch it to fit and then re-sew the ribbon back in place. This way the ribbon doesn't spring the hat back to it's original size before the stretch. Then when it does shrink over time a quick minor stretching will do the trick. Also, if you keep the jack in the hat when not wearing it, it will retain the size you like.

Hope this helps you out.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[retro50]

When I received my Fieldmaster, it was then that I realized that I was a long oval. I used a hat jack to stretch it, but that did not really seem to help. I did not need to stretch the hat so much as to re-shape it. So I got the bright idea of inserting the hat jack perpendicular to the plane of the hat so that it stretched it front and back, and pulled the sides in. then I soaked the crown and let is dry, putting it on my head for the last hour of drying. Success, and a perfect fitting hat.

 

[Woodfluter]

A subject near and dear to me.

I'm a twixt and tween, 59.5 cm or perhaps 7-7/16 US. But very long ovalish. Funny how a little bit of size difference can matter if your head is dimensioned differently from the assumed norm of the present, hats-be-damned day.

Re hat stretchers, here's my favored technique. I have this tubular nylon dog toy (Ruff-Wear) made of red Cordura nylon over some stuffing, with a rope attached. My favored technique is as follows:

(1) Steam lower crown of hat.

(2) Insert dog toy at the sweat band, tucking rope out of the way. There is no gentle turnbuckle, micrometer adjustment involved. This simply distorts the hat way far toward the long oval extreme and warps the brim alarmingly.

(3) Forget about this for several days (really easy for me). Then one day, when going to walk the dogs, think "I bet Hannah would like to play fetch with her toy...wonder what I did with that..." and upon finding it, plop the hat on my head and find it fits very well. Now and later. And no residual brim distortion.

Sorry, but if you don't have a dog, I guess you'd have to buy a hat stretcher.

- Bill

 

[John in Covina]

Re hat stretchers, here's my favored technique. I have this tubular nylon dog toy (Ruff-Wear) made of red Cordura nylon over some stuffing, with a rope attached. Sorry, but if you don't have a dog, I guess you'd have to buy a hat stretcher. - Bill

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We really need a picture of the toy and the hat here to get a fuller appreciation of this technique. Oh and a picture of the dog too just for scientific purposes.

 

[Woodfluter]

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We really need a picture of the toy and the hat here to get a fuller appreciation of this technique. Oh and a picture of the dog too just for scientific purposes.

Happy to oblige, John. Ask and ye shall receive:

Hannah inspects her hat stretcher, presently calibrated for extra long oval.


Hannah declares that she is satisfied with the process.


Warning: Do not attempt this at home with a half-husky unless you have a high shelf.

- Bill

 

[warbird]

I have had several Akubra and I have a slight LO. All of my new Akubras and many of my hats in general have a bit of an uncomfortableness to them especially felt at the front.

I find that with a bit of wear the Akubra will conform to my head shape. I also find Akubras are good at this because they tend to run large. Someone said they thought they ran small, but not to my experience.

 

[John in Covina]

Happy to oblige, John. Ask and ye shall receive:

Hannah inspects her hat stretcher, presently calibrated for extra long oval.


Hannah declares that she is satisfied with the process.


Warning: Do not attempt this at home with a half-husky unless you have a high shelf.

- Bill

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Good stuff, now i understand how it works.

 

[Beowulf67]

Beautiful dog and she has a great smile!

(And for you non-dog people, yes, dog's do smile. They talk to you as well, you just have to know how to listen. )

(or maybe I'm just nuts lol )

 

[Woodfluter]

I have had several Akubra and I have a slight LO. All of my new Akubras and many of my hats in general have a bit of an uncomfortableness to them especially felt at the front.

I find that with a bit of wear the Akubra will conform to my head shape. I also find Akubras are good at this because they tend to run large. Someone said they thought they ran small, but not to my experience.

This is a Kiandra that I got recently on eBay for a good price. Not exactly their current standard model I think - no chin strap attachments, taller crown, gold liner, Strand Hatters (Sydney) label and someone (the store?) seems to have reblocked it crooked. But exceptional sweatband - on the narrow side but possibly the best quality I've ever seen anywhere - very surprising.

Anyway, it needed a lot of steaming and reshaping and I trimmed the brim down to 2-3/4". My head is 59.5 really LO, the hat is 59, so I did a good deal of stretching and long-term ovalizing with the dog toy. It fits great now and has been stable through rains. I think Akubras do run slightly large.

Beautiful dog and she has a great smile!

(And for you non-dog people, yes, dog's do smile. They talk to you as well, you just have to know how to listen. )

(or maybe I'm just nuts lol )

No Beowulf, you aren't nuts at all. They do smile and they do learn to understand human talk, and people can learn their language too.

(She's my dog daughter, you know.)